The future of US housing policy may finally look like the past

Washington

THE Trump administration's first official act was to restore some mortgage fees that had just been eliminated by the Obama administration. The Democratic response to it suggests nearly a decade after the housing bust, the nation may finally be ready to look at housing policy again with fresh eyes.

Ordinarily, the fees charged by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to insure mortgages don't get a lot of media or political attention. But when the Trump administration, within hours of the inauguration, reversed an FHA fee cut, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted out that the new administration's first move was to make getting a mortgage harder for working families.